ROMMI'S WORK
An excerpt from The Longest Day, by Rommi Smith:
Right now, in this moment
split not by milli or nanoseconds,
but by a spectrum of personal and public revelations.
Right now, on this, the longest day,
where the sun stretches the question of itself out to meet the answer of night,
and in this act mirrors existence.
Right now, in the intimate of the present,
where a small spark knows a bigger flame
is its close relative;
there, you are a candle and I am a candle. Lit.
So, all this small talk
of our solo, or self, or sole reflections
in bathroom, bedside, make-up, rear-view mirrors, or glass, is just distraction,
deflecting our attention away from the fact
of something bigger than the singular.
Something that breathes deeper than echo,
or channel, lives further than seabed
or thunder.
It is something that shakes,
the still moon into debate
with the chatter of stars.
And it is this:
when we think it is only our own face in the mirror,
we fool ourselves,
to the growing voice over our shoulders,
of the world.
Right now, a blonde-haired, blued-eyed man in Fulham,
looks deeper in the looking glass and sees,
an almond-eyed Ghanaian.
And who knows whether this is his conscience, taking form,
or thought painting its own image,
or difference translating itself into a common language,
or the past telling the future its name,
or two parallel realities comparing notes,
who knows?
But right now,
a Sudanese man finds a place on the South Bank
where,
for a while,
he is a small boy again,
playing stones on the edge of the Nile.
-From Fairtrade and Fairytales, a Coded Language production. Copyright June 2005.
About Rommi Smith
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